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Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

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Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#81

Post by jeffdavis »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #20

I have a modest proposal to get rid of these patent trolls and these ridiculous settlements that typically are decided by a jury of West Texas farmers. Patents ought to be designated a non-transferrable property. Inventors may create a trust that receives patent revenues, and direct those revenues to any entity they please (their own company, their heirs, another company, a charity, etc.) but would not be able to act…

I think you've misdiagnosed the problems. They have little to do with transferability.

1. Patents are a crap shoot.

2. No realistic means to recover legal fees if you do fight.

3. So it's a one-sided crap shoot.

You could say that being a NPE is a part of #2, but there are easier ways to fix it: just require posting a bond when suing for patent infringement. If you lose, some or all legal expenses will be deducted. If you win, you get the whole thing back.

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#82

Post by rms_returns »

pnathan wrote: post #72
rms_returns wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why doesn't your White House or Obama do something about it? (non-US citizen here).

The Presidential aka executive branch does not have that kind of direct authority in the United States. At best, the executive can start a criminal investigation, which case must be made before the court branch; the laws that were broken were set by the legislative branch. Courts in the US are given an extremely high degree of independence, in the goal of limiting corruption.

> Courts in the US are given an extremely high degree of independence, in the goal of limiting corruption.

And exactly the opposite ended up happening in this case, isn't it? Corruption is a world-wide problem, but I don't know how widespread it is in developed countries. And its the same problem, people sitting at the top don't have authority to curb the ground-level corruption. Here in India at least, the government has started implementing something called Lokpal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokpal

It is an agency which works at the ground-level to curb the corruption both in the private and public sectors (and also the ministry). A question arose, however, that what happens if the Lokpal people itself went corrupt? And that's why the concept of decentralization was introduced. The central Indian agency, CBI can check the corruption in Lokpal, and of course, the courts have authority over both CBI and Lokpal. Thus, decentralization is at least, the present way of stopping corruption here.

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#83

Post by pascalmemories »

rasz_pl wrote: post #75
bbarn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get this. Is there some paid off official there? Different standards? Why is it such a great place to win patent troll suits - which seem to get overturned in higher courts? Is the idea that a win there will stop the defendant from trying to appeal?

Corruption? in a place with Samsung sponsored ice skating ring in the middle of a desert? never!

You beat me to bringing that one up !

Indeed, it's been a huge bonanza for the local residents as big corporations have rolled into town and spent millions on PR (often as close to the courthouse as they can get). Everyone in town is courted (forgive the pun) to try and see corporations in the best possible light, just in case they turn up on a jury in a case against $BIGCORP at a later date.

It's the American Way.

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#85

Post by Kliment »

rms_returns wrote: post #70
nemild wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not a bounty amongst the industry for whoever takes a patent troll to court and wins? The way it works now is that most defendants want to settle because the legal costs are too high for the defendant, and the patent trolls know this. If the defendants pooled their money for anyone who took them to court and won (not even a full patent co-op, which has its own challenges) - would that change how the patent trolls…

I have an even better idea. Why not the industry just maintain a blacklist of trolls? The said troll will not get any support in the IT industry wherever he goes across the USA. From hardware to software to networking, the troll will be deprived of services. Not just that, the tech blogs in the industry can also defame the trolls, so one day that understand the consequences and think thrice before trolling.

Won't work because trolls will spin up a new company for every lawsuit - that's already what some of them do.

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#87

Post by st3v3r »

MCRed wrote: post #42
brianwawok wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/why-do-patent-trolls-g... > But why do patent plaintiffs, especially trolls, see it as such a favorable forum? Partly, the district's relatively rapid litigation timetable can put pressure on defendants to settle. But other local practices in the Eastern District also favor patentees. And, in our view, they do so in a way that is inconsistent with the governing Federal Rules, and…

> work to mask the consistent refusal by the courts in the Eastern District to end meritless cases before trial. More trials should mean more money for lawyers in the area, judges, ancillary people like stenographers and clerks.

I'm 75-90% sure federal judges are on salary, and are not paid by the case. At least I hope this is so.

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#88

Post by blisterpeanuts »

such_a_casual wrote: post #62
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #20

I have a modest proposal to get rid of these patent trolls and these ridiculous settlements that typically are decided by a jury of West Texas farmers. Patents ought to be designated a non-transferrable property. Inventors may create a trust that receives patent revenues, and direct those revenues to any entity they please (their own company, their heirs, another company, a charity, etc.) but would not be able to act…

Or how about we hard delete all software patents since they are absolutely ridiculous? Goodbye $600mil flow charts.

I'd go with that.

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#89

Post by st3v3r »

comex wrote: post #45

Almost as much as the $1B Apple was originally supposed to win from Samsung for equally silly patents. (It's since been slashed down to a tenth of that, but still.) Is it too much to say "live by the sword, die by the sword"?

Yes. Remember, Apple never started asserting their patents until they were sued by numerous patent trolls and Kodak and Creative.

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#90

Post by st3v3r »

josaka wrote: post #39
robotnoises wrote: post #12

From the VirnetX website: http://virnetx.com/company/virnetx-promise/ "Cutting-edge secure communications technology is only one of the essential elements of our products – another is integrity. ..." lol, what products?

FWIW, it looks like they acquired these patents from a company that actually does make something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Applications_Internati... This is speculative, but these patent filings were probably part of a patent filing strategy that helped justify the employment of a what was likely a decent number of engineers by the original owner.

I really can't say I care about those jobs. The engineers would have more than likely found other jobs with actual companies that actually do stuff.
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